Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Then there was a woman inside the room with me, corralling them and guiding them out of the room.
As Sawyer worked next to me getting them all out, I had no idea where she was taking them, I got started on the animals that weren’t able to get out on their own.
Old Otis that had his back leg amputated that was still slightly sedated. Marigold, the kitten, that’d been brought in after being hit by a car.
I had six animals that were unable to move out of their kennels and laid them practically on top of each other on the table in the middle of the room.
Thank God there was a table in this room that moved. Because I wouldn’t be able to get them out except for one at a time.
And the smoke in the room was intense and getting thicker.
I pushed the table toward the middle section where we performed surgeries and exams, as well as housed the larger animals in the outside stables, and nearly ran over a cat.
I scooped that cat up and plopped her on top of the other animals and rushed out of the room.
I had them all but the baby raccoons.
When I met Sawyer in the hallway, I urged, “Take them back and close the doors! I don’t need any more smoke coming into that area!”
Sawyer did what I asked, and she was closing the doors behind her as I left back the way I came.
When I got to the room again, the smoke was too thick to see.
So I got onto my hands and knees and crawled to the wall of cages.
I found the one that I needed with only my hands and spatial awareness of the room.
I found the two raccoons huddled close and stuffed them into my shirt that was luckily still tucked in, coughing the entire time as the smoke ravaged my lungs.
Then I crawled toward the doors.
But in the haste of closing the doors, I forgot that they automatically locked as a safety measure.
I couldn’t see the keypad, either.
Couldn’t feel it. Too high.
I coughed.
I coughed so hard that I threw up on the ground next to my knees.
I crawled toward the new door in the room.
The one put there only a few days ago as a new entrance and exit to get to the other set of kennels in the new building that had a covered walkway now connecting the two.
I pushed the door open, and the smoke billowed out with me.
I couldn’t stand, so I continued to crawl through the construction mess until I reached the grass between the two buildings.
Thank God they were far enough away that the smoke and fire from the first building wouldn’t reach the second.
I continued to crawl until I got to the side of the building where the big bay windows were overlooking the parking area.
When I got there, I looked through the glass and found Sawyer staring at the doors in which she’d left me.
I knocked on the glass, and her head whipped around.
She visibly relaxed when she saw me.
Only when I was safely away from the smoke did I stop, fall to my side in the grass, and relax.
But then I heard his voice again, and I knew that I wasn’t out of danger yet.
TWENTY-THREE
I cause safety briefs.
—Major to Denver
DENVER
I held out my hand to shake Silas’s.
“Hey, man,” I said. “I’m glad you could come.”
Silas nodded and looked up at the courthouse. “I don’t hate being your bogeyman, Denver. It gives me an excitement and thrill that doesn’t come all that often anymore.”
I grinned, but it faded as I thought about what else I had to talk to him about.
“I didn’t invite you out here just to scare my ex-wife,” I admitted.
“Oh?” he asked, looking at me more steadily now. “What’s going on?”
I hadn’t stopped thinking about the man that Holly had seen at the dog fighting ring that night she’d been kidnapped. And I shared as much with Silas in the minutes before I was due inside to fight for my kids in court.
By the time I was through, Silas looked just as murderous as I felt on the inside.
“So it’s Tack, Brute, or Brogue?” he asked.
My stomach clenched as he said the three names.
“They were the only ones unaccounted for that night,” I explained. “Two were paired together, but that doesn’t necessarily give them an alibi as much as it makes it look like they’re both guilty. They’re the newest to the club. And they’ve also been the most vocal about not wanting to add any more members.”
“You mean the members that came in a year or so ago that were convicts?” Silas offered.
“Not just that. They’re against any new members, period. They all three hate Bells and Thumper. They question every decision I’ve made for years. And when Juliana left me, they didn’t outright come out and say it, but they were smug as fuck about sharing that ‘she deserved better.’”